Former Taipei EasyCard Corp chairman Sean Lien (連勝文) came out as the top contender for the next Taipei mayoral race, gaining more than 40 percent support in a latest poll over likely pan-green camp contenders, including lawyer Wellington Koo (顧立雄) and physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), director of National Taiwan University Hospital’s department of traumatology.
The poll released by the TVBS TV yesterday found that 48 percent of respondents said they would vote for Lien if he was running against Koo, while 24 percent said they would support Koo.
If Lien was running against Ko, 42 percent said they would vote for Lien, while 32 percent supported Ko, the survey showed.
Lien, who is on a trip to China with his father, former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), yesterday maintained a low-key stance when asked if he would run in the seven-in-one municipal elections at the end of next year.
“I am still thinking about it... There are complicated situations to clarify, and I must make a responsible decision,” he said in Hangzhou.
The younger Lien is seen as the most competitive candidate for the pan-blue camp in the mayoral race.
However, he reportedly has been hesitant to commit because of health reasons and memories of a shooting incident at a campaign event in 2010 in which he was shot in the cheek.
He declined to comment on his family’s alleged opposition to his pursuing a political career.
Four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members have declared their intention to seek their party’s nomination for the race.
They are legislators Alex Tsai (蔡正元) and Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), and Taipei City councilors Yang Shi-chiu (楊實秋) and Chin Hui-chu (秦慧珠).
It is said that Sean Lien will make public his decision about the Taipei race early next year.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
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